


Just not him

by blowinduck



Series: Rush minific Series [12]
Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: F3 silliness, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4244325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blowinduck/pseuds/blowinduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niki and James share a flat, fighting ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just not him

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr to fill a prompt:
> 
> eyeington asked you:  
> Hi! I loved what you did with my last prompt so couldn’t help myself (sorry) :3 Launt. They get in an argument, niki looks James in a small room, closet maybe? For him to calm down but he has clostrauphobia, so has a panick attack. Niki can’t hear him pleading through the door but he hears the thump when he passes out and hits the floor. Don’t know what happens after but hopefully they make up :3. *i may be in love with all of your words*

“James!”

Niki got out of the bathroom, face slightly blushed and hair still dripping from the shower he had just taken. A disaster of a shower, if he was honest, not any close to the one he had been musing about on his way back to James’ flat – well,  _their_ flat for almost a month now.

“James!” He called out again, feeling irritation starting to make its way to his head.

The grand idiot was sat – no,  _sprawled_ on the only couch in the rather tiny living/dining room; a hand lazily playing with a strand of blond hair as navy eyes were literally plastered on the telly, watching a rather repetitive show with that quirky English humour he hadn’t quite got a grasp on yet; ignoring him completely.

Jerk.

“Oi, Asshole!” He snapped. Finally, a pair of lazy navy eyes looked at him, as if Hunt were gracing him with his attention. Niki then gave him a dry smile and threw James’ dirty clothes on his face, letting a great part of his anger out on the force of the movement.

He enjoyed enormously the yelp that came out of Hunt’s mouth, the sound a satisfactory mix between surprise, pain and indignation.

“Oi, Rat! What’s this all about?!” James complained, sitting up on the couch, the dirty clothes falling ungraciously off his chest to the floor. Niki looked at them in disgust.

“This is the fourth time this week, asshole,” Niki began, taking a deep breath to control his explosive temper. “the fourth time I find your filthy clothes on the bathroom floor. We’ve talked about this, so this is the last time I’m saying this, you idiot: PUT. YOUR. DAMN. CLOTHES. ON. THEIR. PLACE.” James let out an irritated sigh but Niki ignored it, pointing his finger threateningly at him. “If I ever find them on the bathroom floor again I’ll bin them, no, I’ll burn them and spread the ashes on your fucking bed!”

James stood up at that, face all red. “Oh, really?” he took a step, closing the distance between them, as if wanting to impose his height difference and somehow unbalance Niki. “Perhaps this serves you right since you used all the hot water yesterday!”

Ah. So they were going to play this game, huh?

“A thing you weren’t so above off to do the same the day before!” Niki countered back, squaring his shoulders and keeping his stance against James.

“Because you fucking emptied the whole fridge that afternoon, I would have died of starvation if I hadn’t gone out for some fish and chips!”

“Oh, you are a right drama queen!” Niki snapped, turning on his heel so he could ignore the itching need to punch the blond in the nose. “Is it so much for your little brain to just go buy some groceries for us both to eat?”

Niki felt James following him through the room, a permanent shadow. “Excuse me? _You_ emptied the fridge therefore  _you_ go buy the bloody groceries!”

Niki got to a halt, turning to face James, his face so close he could see the thin strips of green on his eyes, thin blond scruff catching the golden light of a may evening, thin lips parted slightly, a healing cut on his lower lip from a pub fight gone a bit out of control almost a week ago–

_Wait, what?_

Niki blinked, slightly confused. He had caught himself staring at James in that way some nights ago, feeling how his concentration got sidetracked when they were too close, taking on the various ways the light played with James’ face, how his eyes wrinkled a bit around the edges every time he smiled, how his deep voice with his silly posh accent pronounced his name…

Niki gave a step back, suddenly needing a bit of space. James noticed that but misinterpreted it as a sign of relent, a smug smile appearing on his face, lighting it up with the characteristic brightness of victory.

“You are being completely stupid, James; way above your standards,” Niki said, trying to find a way out of the argument; he had already made his point quite clear, anyway.

James gave him a crocodile smile, eyes glinting. “Of course I’m not!” he said, real anger gone. “This is my flat so I get to make the rules–“

“What?!” Niki snapped. “I pay the rent too, you idiot!”

“But it was  _my_  flat first, I gave you permission to live here with me–“

“Because  _you_  needed help to pay the rent!”

“That’s half the truth, Niki,” James replied, as if chastising Niki for being selfish. “Do I need remind you needed a place to stay so you could get your racing career on and don’t die trying?” Niki glared at him; that had been an unnecessary low blow. “I’m just saying, Niki, you have to agree I have the  _right_ to set rules here.”

“Okay, I’ve had enough of your bullshit.” He said, exasperated, and with a quick movement, opened the door of the broom cupboard with his right hand and pushed James inside with his left one, taking advantage of James surprise to close the door quickly after him.

Lucky him that door only opened from outside.

“Niki!” Came the muffled cry from behind, accompanied by the sound of things falling on the floor unceremoniously. “Niki, open the door!”

“Not until you meditate carefully about the moronic shit you were saying and regain your sanity!” Niki yelled back, a smile tugging at the corners of his eyes.

“NIKI, THIS IS NOT FUNNY! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR NOW!”

“Nope,” He replied, giving a pop in the last ‘p’, amused.

“NIKI!” Came the muffled cry again, somewhat more insistent now with bangs at the door. “NIKI!”

He chuckled lightly. “Shut up!”

He was about to walk away, mischievously thinking on leaving James there a couple of hours so the asshole would learn, but a loud thump came from inside, accompanied of more things falling off.

And then silence.

“ _Scheiβe,”_ Niki cursed as he opened the door and found James lying on the floor, his limbs in not very elegant positions; brooms and buckets and other cleaning items as well as a sparse sheet lying messily above and below him.

He crouched down, checking for pulse and breathing. Everything was fine, but the asshole appeared unconscious.

Odd.

“James,” Niki tried, giving soft pats to his cheek. “James,” he tried louder, but the idiot didn’t respond.

Worry started prickling at the back of his head but he pushed it aside, huffing as he manhandled James out of the cupboard and leaving him reclined against the wall as he went to the bathroom, bringing back the little bottle of alcohol and some toilet paper.

He crouched down again and patted James again on the cheek for good measure, still getting no response. Niki huffed, wetting a ball of paper with alcohol and passing it just under James’ nose a couple of times before the blond stirred and finally opened his eyes, blinking disorientated.

Niki let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding back.  _Mein Gott,_ he thought as he saw James blink a couple of times before his deep blue eyes focused on him.

“James?” he said, sounding somewhat uncertain. “James, are you all right?”

“Y-yes,” James replied, his voice wobbly in a way Niki would have mocked in other circumstances, looking completely white. “yes, I’m fine. Just…my head, damn, it hurts…”

“You idiot,” Niki murmured, relief mixing quickly with irritation, sinking him to the ground in front of James. “Would you like to explain me what the hell happened to you inside?”

James blinked again until his confused glance turned into a full glare. “You locked me inside the cupboard!” he accused him.

“Brilliant deduction, James,” Niki did his best to suppress rolling his eyes at James’ outraged expression. “now answer me, why the hell did I find you unconscious inside?”

At that James’ gaze broke the eye contact. “I…slipped,”

Niki lifted eyebrow. Did James think he was stupid or what? “James,” he pressed, moving his face to force James to meet his gaze, ignoring the part of his mind that was buggering him with senseless shit about the sudden proximity.

James sighed, defeated, still not quite meeting Niki’s gaze. “I – I’m claustrophobic.”

“What?”

“You heard, Niki,” James replied, his face contorted as if he had just eaten a sour lemon.  “I’m claustrophobic and you surely have noticed that bloody cupboard is so damn narrow and is cluttered and, well, I fainted.”

“Asshole,” Niki said, pressing his eyes with the palm of both hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

James scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, the colour returning to his face. “Why would I do such a thing? You’d only laugh at me”

“Well, yes, I would!” Niki said, irritated, and oddly tired. James fixed his gaze on him again, too quickly for someone who had just fainted. “but  _only_  because you are an idiot. Seriously, you should have told me this sooner. What if I had left you there more time? You gave me a fright, you bastard.”

“You were planning to leave me locked there more time?” James asked, ignoring completely the insults Niki had thrown at him.

“Perhaps until tomorrow, it would have served you right.” Niki replied, standing up and stretching his hand to James.

James stared at the hand and then took it, standing up slowly and laying his back on the wall.

Both kept staring at each other, silence stretching between them as the sun set beyond their window, colouring the white walls with warm tones of pink, orange and yellow; tinting James’ skin with a layer of gold that brought out his navy eyes staring at him, a glint of something Niki didn’t want to know, not just then.

He blinked away, his eyes falling to the couch and James’ dirty clothes still a mess on the floor.

“We need to set common rules, James,” he sighed, returning his gaze back at James. Thankfully, the sun was setting quickly and James’ skin began looking more normal were there had been pure gold only minutes before. “if we pretend to live together without killing each other.”

“I guess you are right,” James admitted, begrudgingly, twisting his lips in a pout.

Both moved to the couch, James kicking his own clothes a metre away, and began talking about shower times and chores and all the things that came with sharing a flat.  James, as always, complained and babbled, ever his noisy, overdramatic self; even so, Niki found himself smiling in a weird mixture of annoyance and amusement when normally he would have told anyone else to piss off.

Everyone else, really; just not James.


End file.
